Political Dynamics

In the immediate aftermath of the Abdallah assassination and
subsequent events of late 1989, a limited amount of political healing
occurred in Comoros. Denard and his fellow mercenaries were expelled,
although the fate of their vast financial holdings in the islands
remained unclear. With the South African government temporarily out of
the picture, French officials now oversaw the police and the army, and
the remnants of the GP were under the watchful eye of French
paratroopers. Among those released in a general amnesty for political
prisoners was Mustapha Said Cheikh, leader of the opposition FD who had
been imprisoned for four years for alleged involvement in the
unsuccessful March 1985 coup. He was quickly proposed as a possible
presidential candidate. Also suggested was Mohamed Taki, one-time
National Assembly president whose power had been diminished by
Abdallah's constitutional maneuvers; he had subsequently gone into exile
in France, where his entourage reportedly included two mercenary
bodyguards. Also announcing for the presidency was Said Ali Kemal, who
had been living in quiet exile in Paris since being exposed as the
sponsor of Australian mercenaries who had plotted to overthrow the
Abdallah government in 1983. In late December 1989, members of the
formerly banned opposition, along with President Djohar, decided to form
a provisional "national unity" government and to hold a
multiparty presidential election in 1990.

In an awkward but somehow effective campaign to keep himself in
power, Djohar spent much of the early 1990s playing a political shell
game with the opposition. He moved election dates backward and forward
and sanctioned irregularities, giving his opponents little choice but to
condemn the balloting as invalid. Djohar began this strategy within
weeks of his installation as interim president, rescheduling the
presidential election set for January 14, 1990 to February 18. Djohar's
decision was met with demonstrations and violence that marked an abrupt
end to the post-Abdallah period of national unity, hardly three weeks
after Bob Denard had been expelled from the country. The February 18
balloting broke down shortly after the polls opened. The government was
accused of widespread fraud, including issuing multiple voting cards to
some voters and opening the polls to voters who looked well below the
minimum age of eighteen.

Elections were rescheduled for March 4, 1990 with a runoff on March
11; Djohar was the official victor, claiming 55 percent of the vote over
runner-up Mohamed Taki's 45 percent. Djohar had run under the banner of
the Union Comorienne pour le Progrès (Udzima- -Comoran Union for
Progress), basically a recycled version of Ahmed Abdallah's old UCP,
whereas Taki had represented the National Union for Comoran Democracy
(Union Nationale pour la Démocratie Comorien--UNDC). As would be the
case in other Comoran elections in the 1990s, the sole major issue
appeared to be the character and ability of the incumbent president
rather than any matter of public policy or ideology. The Supreme Court
certified the results of the election, despite strong evidence that the
Ministry of Interior had altered the vote count, especially in the first
round, to favor Djohar at Taki's expense.

In March 1992, with two of the government's Udzima ministers having
broken away to form a new party and conflict among the remaining Udzima
ministers growing, Djohar headed off the complete collapse of his
government by convening a multiparty constitutional convention. He
scheduled a referendum on the new document in May, with general
elections in June and balloting for local offices in July. After one
postponement, the referendum was held on June 7. The Constitution of
1992 passed with about 74 percent of the vote, despite intensive
campaigning against it by the FD and Udzima, which by this point opposed
President Djohar. Among the new document's elements were articles
calling for a bicameral legislature and a limit on presidential tenure
to two five-year terms.

The legislative elections, postponed several times, finally were held
on November 22 and 29, 1992. They were preceded in late September by an
attempted coup by junior army officers, allegedly with the support of
opposition politicians. Possible motives for the coup were an unpopular
restructuring program mandated by the World Bank, which entailed sharp
reductions in the number of civil servants, and President Djohar's
ambiguous threat on September 10 that his main opponents would "not
be around for the elections." Djohar used the coup attempt as an
opportunity to jail six military men and six opposition leaders
"under conditions of extreme illegality," according to the
Comoran Association of Human Rights (Association Comorienne des Droits
Humains--ACDH).

Although a trio of French public officials sent to observe the
balloting judged the election generally democratic, President Djohar's
most prominent and determined opponents spent the voting days either in
hiding or in jail. Two of the most important of the republic's
twenty-four political parties, Udzima and the UNDC, boycotted the
election. Given the president's own lack of party support, he spent most
of 1993 cobbling together one government after another; at one point, in
late spring 1993, he formed two governments in the space of three weeks.

The events of a single day in July 1993 perhaps summed up the
near-term prospects of politics in Comoros. On July 23, heeding demands
that he call legislative elections (he had dissolved parliament on June
18 because of its inability to agree to a candidate for prime minister
and because of the lack of a government majority) or else face the
prospect of "other forms of action" by the opposition, Djohar
scheduled voting for late October. That same day, his government
arrested two opposition leaders for public criticism of the president.

The scheduled elections were again postponed--for the fourth
time--until December 1993. On November 17, 1993, Djohar created a new
National Electoral Commission, said to be appropriately representative
of the various political parties. Meanwhile Djohar had established a new
progovernment party, the Rally for Democracy and Renewal (Rassemblement
pour la Démocratie et le Renouveau--RDR). In the first round of
elections on December 12, which featured twenty-four parties with 214
candidates for fortytwo seats, various voting irregularities occurred,
including the failure to issue voting cards to some 30 percent of
eligible voters. The government announced that Djohar's party had won
twenty-one seats with three seats remaining to be contested. Most
opposition parties stated that they would not sit in the assembly and
also refused to participate in the postponed second stage elections,
which were supervised by the Ministry of Interior and the gendarmerie
after the National Electoral Commission disintegrated. As a result, the
RDR gained a total of twenty-two seats, and Djohar appointed RDR
secretary general Mohamed Abdou Madi as prime minister.

Denouncing the proceedings, on January 17, 1994, thirteen opposition
parties formed a combined Forum for National Recovery (Forum pour le
Redressement National--FRN). The Udzima Party began broadcasting
articles about Comoros appearing in the Indian Ocean Newsletter,
including criticisms of the RDR. In consequence, its radio station, Voix
des Îles (Voice of the Islands) was confiscated by the government in
mid-February 1994-- in September 1993, the radio station belonging to
Abbas Djoussouf, who later became leader of the RDR, had been closed.
Tensions increased, and in March 1994 an assassination attempt against
Djohar occurred. At the end of May, civil service employees went on
strike, including teachers, and violence erupted in mid-June when the
FRN prepared to meet.